Optics for Efficient Western Hunting
Patrick Meitin

Optics and glassing are a huge part of every Western big game hunt, from the smallest javelina to the largest elk, they’re as indelibly yoked as eastern whitetails are to tree-stands.  The West’s a land of wide-open spaces and vast vistas where game can be highly scattered and difficult to locate due to rugged terrain and sometimes formidable topography.  Only the foolish hunter goes it by brawn alone.  Savvy western hunters use their head, and quality optics, to cover considerably more country in a shorter duration of time.  Without quality binoculars you’re simply not hunting the West at peak efficiently.  Binoculars are used to find distant game initially, follow game movements until they bed and invite a stalk, to carefully field judge a trophy animal, check on a bedded mule deer during a stalk or a bugling bull elk while dogging him through thick northern blacktimber or Southwest PJ (pinon-juniper) cover.  Without binoculars you’re simply adrift and wandering aimlessly, depending more on luck than skill to create a successful outcome.

     The binocular design you choose can very well determine the outcome of your Western hunt as well.  While Eastern hunters normally choose glass for compactness and an ability to be easily stashed while working in the tight confines of a tree-stand or blind, used only to quickly inspect a suspicious flicker or shadow or watch a buck after a hit, the West offers much more challenging circumstances.  While hunting the West, no matter your weapon choice, glassing distances are more likely to be measured in thousands of yards rather than in farm field or woodlot widths.  The West asks for something inherently steady, something that will not induce eye strain and nausea after a couple hours behind them.  They will also see some rough and tumble use, requiring rugged dependability. 

The vast distances normally found in the West also call for more powerful optics.  Something in the 10-power range is standard, instead of 8-power models normally chosen by Eastern hunters.  The combination of steadiness and high power automatically points to large objective lens.  The numbers will look something like 10x40, 10x42, or 10x50 – to name a few common configurations – and also mean they will better gather light during the edges of day when game moves best, penetrate shadow better while probing for bedded game, and in general are simply sharper and brighter.  Look for a glass that allows objective to be divided by power at least four times.  Increased objective size, 42, 50, provides additional steadiness and light-gathering ability, but also comes slightly heavier payload.

     In many Western hunting situations glass with even more power are highly welcomed.  Binoculars in the 12- to 20-power range are used by hunters in open country where glassing distances can stretch into miles, where vegetation, terrain, and the game itself can prove tedious and a closer look is necessary for success.  This describes quarry such as the Southwest’s Coues whitetail in particular, mountain mulies anywhere their habitat is wide open, and prairie pronghorn.  Wild sheep and mountain goats constitute their own class, treacherous terrain influencing a need to sit tight and glass as far as the eye can see before investing more treacherous climbing to reach a new observation point.  A 15x60 binocular, for example, is a highly common open-country glass used by many professional guides and outfitters.  Such glasses are normally mounted atop a tripod via special binocular mounts that help steady these big glasses for long-distance reconnaissance.  Any glass greater than 12 power simply can not be held steady by hand, each heart beat creating blurred images that with time will induce raging migraines.                

     In the West your binoculars will practically live around your neck.  They’ll receive plenty of hard knocks.  They will be bumped against rocks while climbing, thumped against saddle horns, rained and snowed on, ride on dusty dashboards.  This is no place for a wimpy set of discount-class binoculars.  Unfortunately, in optics you basically get what you pay for.  There are no true bargains in optics, unless you depreciate a high-quality set of binoculars over a lifetime.  You might buy five sets of budget-priced binoculars to get you through as many seasons as a single set of top-quality glass.  Viewed from this perspective, quality glass costs no more over the long haul.  It seems $750 to $1,000 is the base price for a truly useful pair of rubber-armored Western binoculars today.  There are a few shinning stars in the American arena, but the Germans and Austrians have typically dominated the high-end binocular market.  The best names are well known to any hunter -- and worth every penny.

     Even if you aren’t a trophy hunter, toting a spotting scope makes plenty of sense.  They can be used to inspect a distinct lump too distant to discern clearly with binoculars alone, confirm those are antlers you’re seeing and not tree branches behind a bedded animal’s head – and, of course, to determine trophy quality when you are holding out for something exceptional.  The spotting scope is a time saver, allowing you to cover in seconds what might require hours of hiking to move close enough to receive a detailed look with binoculars.  Again, quality comes at a price, though unless you’re an outfitter mid-priced scopes will normally suffice.  Variable models are the most versatile, dialed down low to quickly locate a spotted animal or during periods of intense heat shimmer, cranked up when more detail is wanted on demand.  A sturdy tripod is essentially mandatory, though laying your scope across a daypack can suffice when weight limits are at a premium or high winds buffet even a tripod-mounted scope.         

     Top-quality Western optics come with a price, no doubt, but to make every hunting foray as successful as possible invest in the very best you can possibly afford.  Quality optics nearly guarantees you will see more and bigger Western game every time you take to the field.

Patrick Meitin, SNA Contributing Writer